Morocco # English board

An interesting book and review on a phenomenon not widely discussed. It hits a cord in Morocco when defending the berber culture is viewed as a political or conspiratorial move when in fact it is vital in so many ways.
An excerpt for the lazy who won't read it all :

By the year 2100, many linguists estimate, half of the world's 6,912 distinct languages will be extinct. At present, 548 of them retain fewer than ninety-nine speakers. We can expect to lose a language every ten days; and behind each of these disappearances lies a story of cultural loss, sadness and isolation



[www.powells.com]

Yes, that's sad. On the other hand, this is to be considered normal because it was always like that (Evolution). The only thing is that Globalization is speeding up the process.

Now the question would be, where are we in this development?

Quote

BBKing
Now the question would be, where are we in this development?

Providing I understood what you meant, which I'm not sure, I'd say we're moving fast, too fast. Moroccan society isn't given the time to digest the mutations. Linguistically speaking, those mutations have already slashed parts of local languages, since we're less and less an agrarian society, words describing for instance land, herbs, and so forth, are disappearing, only elders retain some of that thesaurus.
Price to pay, some would say, for progress but the core of the language has to be preserved, especially when it is not a written one, as it is in the case of berber languages.

Quote
chelhman

Quote

BBKing
Now the question would be, where are we in this development?

Providing I understood what you meant, which I'm not sure, I'd say we're moving fast, too fast. Moroccan society isn't given the time to digest the mutations. Linguistically speaking, those mutations have already slashed parts of local languages, since we're less and less an agrarian society, words describing for instance land, herbs, and so forth, are disappearing, only elders retain some of that thesaurus.
Price to pay, some would say, for progress but the core of the language has to be preserved, especially when it is not a written one, as it is in the case of berber languages.

Most of moroccans don't even know the history of the Berber people. I myself don't know much about tribes and dialects etc. All what we know that they were the first settler (first lesson in Madrassa). In the same vein, in the next 100 years the moroccan dialect (Darija) will become an old fashioned way of speaking and eventually will be extinct.

Salam

I think this phenomenon is, as said before, normal..this is the case of languages which do not have a strong writing system as linguists say, I think this is due to the fact that only writing can preserve a language from disapearing and also enriches it by preserving old levels or versions if i may say so...As for darija, i don't think that is to be considered a language, it is a dialect that is strongly attached to context, time and the degree of influence of other languages and cultures, it will surely change considerably but still it will be called moroccan arabic or darija...As far as tamazight is concerned, all depends on to what extent it will be developped to line up with other "modern" languages, a step which Arabic needs to do with the only and very important fact that the latter has a very strong writing system...

I don't think darija will disappear, it seems to be gaining ground actually. Let's take the example of Agadir, a few decades ago you couldn't get by without speaking tachel7it, now with immigration waves from the Chiâdmâ plains, darija is a the primary language.
Darija is evolving, incorporating new words, new slang, so it is a lively language, much like Maltese for instance.

About the language/dialect, it is true that it does not fill the criteria of a "language", but it is nonetheless the primary mean of communication in Morocco. The only person I saw speaking fôss7a arabic in Morocco was a crazy man living in the streets near my grandmother's... Did I mention he was crazy ?
Since I'm from the diaspora not born in Morocco or schooled in the moroccan system, arabic does not hit a cord with me, it is not my language, don't read or write it, so darija and some tachel7it are the only way I was taught to communicate when in Morocco, which brings us to my point : darija is the moroccan language, the Constitution writers might have put arabic in there for whatever reason but as Moroccans born outside, we have no connection to arabic. So I don't see darija dying anytime soon since the moroccan diaspora will continue to pass on its heritage and arabic is not in there, people speak a collection of berber nuances and darija.

As chelhman said Dairja won't die out as a language. I have been only once to Morocco, i know its enough to say judge whether it will die or not, but from what i have seen everyone speaks the dialect / language (to me its a different language i barely understand anything). All the arab countries use fos7a and speak their own dialect and thats natural. The only thing i noticed there is that french is used more in shops, restuarants, cinemas, etc... It gave me a hard time as i dont know the language.

Atleast i know some words like wa5a, mezyan and neshan

What we will see is more words been integrated into the language but made into our darija that is the principle of evolution. The majority will speak a few other languages as well as darija. As it was said if we analyse our dialect we will find the traces of kind of languages due to the position of our country and the open mentality of our nation. The influence of the west and the developed countries increase the affinity, alienation and support to their languages but any new word acquired will be Moroccanised just like “jnaffo = je m’en fou” and others.

the tamazigh will never tamazigh. I am proud to be moroccan half amazigh and half arabic.
Believe me amazigh will live even in the arctic depth.

Take care and don't be worry